Source: ariosimanagement.com
Born in Lesnoy, Russian soprano Elena Stikhina is one of today’s leading sopranos on the international scene. She is regularly invited to prestigious opera houses such as the Metropolitan Opera in New York, La Scala in Milan, the Paris Opéra, the Vienna State Opera, and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, to name a few.
In the 2024/25 season Elena is performing the title role in Puccini’s Turandot and the role of Amelia Grimaldi in Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, the title role in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly at the Opéra Bastille, Donna Leonora in Verdi’s La forza del destino and the title role in Puccini’s Tosca at the Teatro alla Scalla, the title role in Verdi’s Aida and the role of Liza in Tchaikovsky’s Pique Dame at the Bayerische Staatsoper, the title role in Puccini’s Manon Lescaut at the Opernhaus Zürich, the role of Leonora in Verdi’s Il trovatore at the Royal Opera House, the title role in Puccini’s Tosca at the Deutsche Oper Berlin.
Highlights of Elena’s recent seasons include appearances at the Wiener Staatsoper as Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana, Aida at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Arena Di Verona and Grand Théâtre de Genève, Elsa in Lohengrin at the Metropolitan Opera, Manon Lescaut at the Bayerische Staatsoper and Salome at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Opernhaus Zürich, as well as Tosca at the Metropolitan Opera and Royal Opera House in London. Other performances include Liza in Pique Dame at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Leonora in La forza del destino at the Semperoper in Dresden and Opéra National de Paris.
Elena studied at the Moscow Conservatory (class of Larisa Rudakova), and at the Galina Vishnevskaya Opera Singing Centre (under Makvala Kasrashvili). After initial appearances at the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre in Vladivostock, she made her debut at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg as Salome, for which she was awarded the Onegin Prize and the Golden Soffit Award, and went on to become a member of the ensemble of the Mariinsky.
Among the prizes she has won is the audience and CulturArte prizes in the Operalia competition in 2016, which led to numerous international guest engagements in Europe and the USA. These included Tatyana (Eugene Onegin) at the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki and at the Paris Opéra, Tosca at the Boston Lyric Opera, Mimì (La bohème) at the Berlin State Opera, Leonora (Il trovatore) at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Senta (Der fliegende Holländer) at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, and the title role of Suor Angelica at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. She made her Salzburg Festival debut in 2019, with the title role of Cherubini’s Médée, returning in 2021 for Britten’s War Requiem, in 2022 for Aida and 2023 in Falstaff.
